ose than to make their infringement the more tempting and
delightful. My chum knew one of the Oreads, a girl from his own village;
with this key we carried the citadel. We established a post office in
the neighboring stone wall and arranged many a clandestine meeting, walk
or drive. The girl whom I had chosen for my devotions was from the White
Mountains of New Hampshire. She wore her hair in long curls, that fell
over her neck and shoulders, and were constantly straggling over her
face. Then with a toss of her comely head and a pretty gesture of her
hand she would throw them back. This little trick captivated me and
fixed my fate. She constantly came between me and the Latin declensions
and conjugations that I was trying to memorize. However, I was saved
from anything like a formal attachment by her early announcement to me
that she was engaged to the son of an ex-governor of New Hampshire. I
had reason to suspect afterward that this was a subterfuge to forestall
any serious consequences from our intercourse. If so, she was a wise
maiden, and whatever claims we men may arrogate to ourselves, women are
better tacticians than we in their personal relations. With this
barrier, thus timely erected, I was kept on my good behavior and we
amused ourselves with each other's company in many a stolen woodland
walk, and in a frequent defrauding of the Worcester post-office of its
revenues. She wrote a tiny hand and could crowd more upon a page than I
could upon four. I treasured her notes in my inmost pocket, and our
secret correspondence gave me almost as deep a joy as did our
companionship.

It was at this time I began to make verses, as much from an imitative
instinct as from my sentimental relation with the pretty Oread; for
there was now in the school a young man who set up for a poet and was
much admired by us all. It seems to me he must have had a sense of
musical rhythm, for there has remained in my ear ever since a stanza of
his which I caught as he read it to a little coterie of students. There
is nothing in it save its melody.

"The while amid the greenwood
Whistled the summer breeze
Fair Mantua's maiden swore to wed
Her loving Genoese."

Those two names, Mantua and Genoese, had a wonderful, faraway
imaginative association for me, and still have. Matthew Arnold's magic
of poetry, magical words and lines, explain all its charm for me. A
feeling beyond the words or the sense is what I require in p